


A Healthy Heartbeat

by mertlekang



Category: Super Junior
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Memory Loss, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-03 15:57:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5297354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mertlekang/pseuds/mertlekang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heechul is trapped in a youthful body after his death in 1805, a slave to time, devoid of emotion. Will he ever feel his heart beat again?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Foreword

**Author's Note:**

> This is a super old fic I wrote in 2012 - thought I might as well post it here.

There was a time, long ago, when he had been far from lonely, far from sad. But good things rarely last, even more so when that good thing is human, mortal. Humans age, humans die, because time is cruel and it stops for no one. Heechul was no one, suspended in eternal youth though his age was long forgotten in years long passed.

  
He was there when the Japanese invaded Korea, he was a soldier then. He'd died in battle - or that's what the plaque says. He'd stood in an elementary school, holding tiny, trembling hands tightly while American bombs screeched overhead and fires burnt in Nagasaki. He was a ghost of history chained to a young body.   
  
He'd watched people he'd grown close to die before his eyes, but no matter how many bullets he took, how many times he poisoned his blood with drugs and alcohol, he survived through the excruciating pain while he watched the people he'd watched grow old find peace in death.  
  
He was alone. Alone by his own choice, because he couldn't bear the pain, the loneliness as he stood still in time, watching them age and wither and die. He isolated himself from human contact, banishing himself to the shadows of his home town to roam as a ghost, a memory.  
  
But that night, a cold, wet night in the December of 1984, he stopped being lonely. He didn’t know what made him walk through that alley, or why he stopped long enough to notice the young woman huddled under thin rags on the wet concrete, clutching a bundle tightly to her chest with cold, rigid fingers. That was the night he met Hangeng.


	2. 1804.

Heechul sucked in a breath, eyes wide as if waking from a nightmare, and all around him was black. The stench of rotting, mouldy wood and wet soil filled his nostrils and he coughed violently, hitting his head on the surface above him. Moving a little, he found himself in a tight, narrow space. A wooden box. A coffin.

He’d been buried alive.

He should have felt a sudden rush of fear, a spike in his heartbeat, but he felt oddly calm. And, as slow as if he were moving through treacle, he lifted a hand to touch his chest, his heart. But there was nothing, not a thud and not a beat. 

He was dead, and as he touched the material covering his chest he could feel the blood flaking off his clothes onto his fingertips, dry and crisp. He must’ve been lying there for at least three days. 

His fingers found a hole, a gap in the material, frayed and rough, as if singed; and he remembered why he was there, in that wooden box. To him, it was only moments ago, but in reality it was nearly two weeks since he’d stood, muddy and weary, fighting to protect his country from aliens. Because that’s what they called them, then; the Japanese. Such silly things humans fought for; land, money, all worthless. All of them so greedy and selfish, not once thinking of sharing, taking a peaceful route. Always reaching for a weapon when all that’s needed is words.

He’d been shot, three times; twice in the back and once in the chest. He could still feel the tenderness where the bullets had ripped through his flesh, he could still feel the puckered skin through his clothes, the wound over his heart. He didn’t die quickly, the pain was fresh in his mind. The shots to his back had dropped him to his knees, but it was the final bullet that got him where it mattered, that made the blood pour from his slackened mouth. But that was war, he just ended up with the short straw. Nobody noticed he’d fallen, or maybe they did; but even if your brother, your best friend falls right in front of you, you have to keep fighting, even if it means stepping over their dead body. Heechul wasn’t special, just another young soldier, throwing his life away in the name of his country.

But how could he still be breathing? Maybe this was the afterlife, his piss-poor version of paradise. He’d always imagined death to come to him in his sleep, or something pathetic like that; because he’d never done anything dangerous in his life, hardly lifted a finger. Even for a poor, scrawny farm boy, he had all the arrogance of a Prince. But he knew this wasn’t paradise, this wasn’t death, he was alive; and all he knew was that he had to get out, because the air was already becoming thick and heavy in his lungs and he wasn’t ready to die again. He pounded on the sodden wood above him, slowly at first, but faster and harder as he carried on, so hard he felt his skin crack and splinters pierce his flesh; but he didn’t stop. But the strangest part, stranger than the fact he wasn’t worried about his skin splitting open, or his hands bleeding, was that he wasn’t panicking. Every movement felt robotic, instinctive, not even the pain could stop him. He pulled and scratched and ripped off the panels until his fingernails were bloody and chipped and soil started to hit his face, until the Earth above gave way and collapsed atop him.

But it seemed it was a shallow grave, and after a few moments of coughing and spluttering and spitting the soil from his mouth, he pulled himself limply over and out of the crude hole he’d been lying in; and kneeling on the hard, frozen ground, he looked around at where he was. It was night, the moon was full and the sky was sparkling with stars, a few wispy clouds swirling up into the heavens. It was cold, extremely so, the grass about him all stiff and white, crunching whenever he moved; and he wrapped his thin, flimsily dressed arms around himself as his teeth chattered and the wind blew his short hair this way and that. His hair used to be long, down to his shoulders and a wavy, rich inky black, but they made him cut it when he joined the army. Thinking about it, he guessed it was quite shallow that the thing he missed the most during his service was his hair rather than his wife.

He was surrounded by tiny wooden crosses, standing before lumpy, uneven earth, and he recognised where he was instantly, as it was the only cemetery for miles. He could see the grave of his father beside his, and his grandfather just beyond. Living in the countryside, people couldn’t afford fancy graves made of stone, they could barely afford to eat. He could’ve named everyone buried in that little field, the community was just that small. If he’d had a choice in the matter he’d have been buried somewhere nicer, somewhere less eerie and solemn. A lonesome tree stood withered and bent to the back of the small field, branches outstretched like gnarled claws, its leaves all white or dead on its thick roots below. The whole place just felt like death, fitting, he supposed, as it was a place of death, for the dead. Somewhere he should have fitted in just perfectly.

Looking back at his grave, it was a mess now; planks of wood snapped and bloody from where he’d torn the flesh from his fingertips, just a hole full of soil. His cross, deep brown and lopsided, lay upturned before the hole, and he crouched to pick it up, running his grimy fingers over the rough wood. It read: ‘Kim Heechul, 1778 – 1804’, the words etched in messily; and he scoffed to himself. He’d expected a little message at least, and not a single flower was to be seen. He smiled wryly to himself at the thought; the fact that he was more upset over a plank of wood than the fact he was dead was so like himself. He’d always been a little bit arrogant, and apparently that hadn’t changed, even the army couldn’t change Kim Heechul, not even death.

He tossed the cross into his grave, and got to his feet, taking one last, slow glance at what should have been his resting place before he turned away and headed for home. It was a long way, and he had no idea what he was going to say to his wife, but he needed to know if this was real, if he was really alive. Not to mention he was freezing cold, and a cup of tea beside the fire would be pretty nice.

The road he walked down was cold and lonely, rice paddies being the only scenery for miles around. The silence was thick and heavy around him, not even a bird or a cricket could break it, as if time had stopped along with his heart. He felt his toes numb rapidly, and his breaths made little puffs of vapour in the dark. The rough material of his dirty army uniform scratched at his cold, sensitive skin, and he walked faster, the moon and the stars being his only light.

After what seemed like hours, and it probably was, he saw a light in the distance. The sounds of cattle grew louder as he approached, and he already missed the lonely silence he’d been surrounded by only minutes before. As he drew nearer he made the light out to be a house – his house. The house he hated, filled with things he hated, where the woman he hated lived; and he deliberately slowed his steps. This was the place he’d ran away from, the reason he’d joined the army. He wasn’t in any rush to go back. 

Heechul didn’t love his wife, not in the slightest. It wasn’t her fault, she was the only girl for a few miles, and being close to his age, he’d been forced to marry her when he was sixteen. Of course, he’d resisted, because he had bigger plans for himself, but his father was a big man, and Heechul was just a kid. He still remembered the feel of that leather belt, shocking to his delicate skin. And sure, his wife was pretty, but Heechul just couldn’t bring himself to love her. Well, it was more like he didn’t even try. He had no interest in her, his mind was focused solely on himself.

He found himself, much too soon, standing before the kitchen window, a warm, yellow light pouring out through the battered, dirty blue shutters. He peered in through a crack in the wood, and watched silently as a young, pretty woman tottered around the small, homely kitchen. Her long, dark hair was tied back and she had a scruffy apron tied around her waist, covered in flour and a concoction of other things. A little, dainty girl sat at the rickety old table in the middle of the room, and Heechul’s eyes widened.

She was the spitting image of him, from the big eyes to the nose and the full lips, a milky-skinned face beneath silky, black hair. His daughter, she had to be. He didn’t even know his wife was pregnant, not that it would have stopped him from leaving. If he’d known, he’d have left even sooner. He didn’t need to lie to himself, he knew well enough that he was scared of commitment, of growing up. He didn’t want to grow old like the other, withered old men around here, he wanted something more. He wanted to make something of his life, he knew he was made for bigger things.

He stepped away from the window and walked round to the front of the small house, tapping the front door open gently. It didn’t have a lock, there was nothing to steal anyway, and it was a tight knit little community. The frail wooden door creaked a little as it opened, and his boots made the floorboards groan beneath him as he walked through the small house. He was a small man, but there was nothing graceful about him at all.

A fire was crackling feebly in the small fireplace, raggedy chairs surrounding it all covered with old rags. The house was actually quite empty, no books or ornaments lined the shelves, just dust. The scent of food filled the room, and he followed it, walking over to the kitchen and standing in the doorway, preparing himself for screams and curses and tears, but nothing happened, even after a few minutes. His wife walked right past him, oblivious, to boil some water on the fire, and his daughter simply sat at her chair as she ate her dinner, swinging her short legs off the edge and singing quietly to herself.

Heechul shifted his position slightly, and she looked right at him, her big, brown eyes growing wide. Her mouth formed a little, astounded ‘o’ and she shouted for her mother, and, hearing her daughter, she once again walked past him over to where she sat. ‘There’s no one there,’ she said when her daughter told her about the man in the doorway, ‘stop being silly.' Even when his daughter pressed on, his wife just didn’t listen. Because, really, who listens to a child?

That was when Heechul realised something was definitely wrong; because he was standing right there, how could she not see him? But looking down at his boots, caked in mud and blood and debris, not a grain had touched the floor, no footprints followed him through the door. It was as if he wasn’t there at all, as if he were just a photograph, an image. His daughter insisted once again that he was there, but his wife just shook her head and went to walk back into the living room, past him – but she stopped. And for a second, it was as if she could see him too, and her eyes grew moist and sad, but she shook her head again dismissively before walking off through the house. 

The little girl still stared at him when he looked back at her, and he knew she recognised him, even if they’d never met. And, maybe, if he were a bigger man, a real father, he would’ve said something, anything. Maybe if his heart was still working he would have felt something, a fatherly instinct, a need to tell her he was real, that she still had a father, but he felt nothing; and he turned away from her and headed for the bedroom, gathering his things, though he didn’t have much, and stuffing them into a bag. A mirror – well, more a shard of shiny glass – sat on the rickety, make-shift bedside table, and looking at it he could see himself looking back. He was still real. Ghosts didn’t have reflections, did they?

He left that house, and he never looked back. He didn’t feel a shred of regret leaving his daughter behind, because the only thing that made her his was that the same blood ran through their veins. To her, he was a stranger, she’d forget him by tomorrow. Nothing tied them together, he didn’t even know she existed until then, and she, most likely, thought he was dead. He walked on and on for miles, passing field upon field, even as the sun rose pale in the sky and his feet grew sore and tired. He wanted to feel something, anything; anger, sadness, relief, but there was nothing. Just a sense of emptiness and loss, like forgetting something important.

He stayed like that, frozen on the inside, for years. He was still human, he still slept, ate and did all the things he did before he died, but it was hard to buy a place, live somewhere when no one could see you, and he couldn’t exactly get a job, either. He just roamed from town to town, penniless and ignored, sleeping in derelict buildings and dirty alleyways.

It didn’t seem like he was invisible, though. People didn’t walk through him or wonder why food was levitating or anything silly like that; it was more like they just didn’t notice him. He was that person in the corner of your eye, the person you just didn’t see. Not everyone was blind to him, though. He found that children, not yet in their teens, could see him quite clearly, as did his daughter. Like an imaginary friend, or that’s what their parents would always shrug him off as whenever their children told them about him. And if, by chance, someone saw him, and really looked at him, they’d forget him within moments of looking away. He had no impact on history, just a shell full of memories, an impossible existence.

And even though he didn’t feel emotions as he used to, he seemed to gain an overwhelming sense of compassion and sympathy as time went on, and the need to do good was something he grew used to after years of selfishness and arrogance. At first he’d ignored the sensation, the tiny smile that tugged at his lips when he helped someone without their knowledge, but he grew to crave it, revel in it. Before, he would’ve wanted recognition for a good deed, people to bow before him if he so much as bothered to speak to them. Of course, he never got any of that, even back then, but the point was, he’d changed. And he didn’t hate it.

Adults were rude. The people he’d tried to help, the homeless or the careless, they’d always look at him like he was weird for helping them, like he wasn’t supposed to give them a hand. Or maybe he just shocked them, made them feel the need to defend themselves, because they’d never seen him coming. He just tended to pop up from nowhere to them, even if he’d been stood right beside them. They never thanked him. The moment they looked away from him it was as if he hadn’t done anything at all.

He turned his attentions to children instead, the people that really deserved kindness, because children held no prejudice, they always had a smile to spare and a story to tell. And they remembered. He’d sneak into orphanages, laden with food he’d stolen off street vendors, and he’d feed the children there, all skinny and ragged from mistreatment. He visited children with terminal illnesses, the ones left to die in empty hospital wards, because medicine was expensive and underdeveloped, and most people just couldn’t afford for their children to be looked after. Often children would talk of the pretty man who’d walk the wards of hospitals, just talking to them late at night, keeping them company. Maybe he was making up for leaving his daughter, maybe he needed something to fill that empty, cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. Either way, even if he couldn’t feel it, he knew whatever he had to give was worthwhile. Hope, another thing he missed feeling.

He read books, learned medicine and the workings of the human body. He filled his mind with knowledge and languages, going from library to library just to pass the time, leaving behind scruffy old books, all dog eared and yellowed with use. He liked books, they were like him. Timeless relics of eras long past, memories and stories left to gather dust on tall oak shelves. The days ran on endlessly, his face never changing, not a wrinkle to be seen on his flawless, ageless face; and he grew tired, mentally tired. In 1842 he grew truly weary of watching the children he helped grow into adults, leaving him behind as nothing but a memory, an endless loop wherein he grew all the more lonesome. He missed the warmth of another body next to his as he slept rather than the cold, empty bedsheets he wrapped himself in, if he even found a bed to sleep in. He longed to be real again, to feel blood pulsing in his veins, to hear the dull thud of life thumping in his ears, but he knew that was a long shot, and he took the next best thing. That was the year he first tried to end his life.

He hadn’t planned it out, nor had he dwelt on it, it was a spur of the moment thing. He was curious as to whether he could actually die if he'd already died once before. He took his belt and tied it to the chandelier of the flat he was squatting in, stepping onto one of the rickety chairs left behind in the old building, slowly, carefully, he had no need of haste. He had all the time in the world. He hung himself, and he could still remember the sound of his neck snapping, of the ceiling groaning with his weight. He’d woken up once again only three days later, the weight of his body having pulled the ceiling down and making him fall to the ground, loosening the noose around his neck and making him gasp, his neck popping back into place with a grotesque ‘click’. There was something addictive about it, the feeling after he woke up, of being alive. Of cheating death. That wasn’t the last time he attempted to kill himself, not by far; but was it really suicide if he knew he was going to wake up?

And with every attempt he felt every sting, every ache. He felt the sensation of water pooling into his lungs the time he drowned himself in the bath, the burning sensation of coughing it all back up, of his lungs screaming for oxygen. He heard the sound of his bones snapping, breaking beneath him as he hit the bottom of that shallow lake the time he jumped off that bridge, so high up yet the fall was as fast as blinking. Every time he woke up, regained consciousness, though, his wounds would be healed, his bones all twisted back to their proper place. The scars didn’t fade, however. They never faded, all silver lines over his otherwise perfect skin. He didn’t care for them, though, they barely crossed his mind; the only scar he looked at, traced when looking in the mirror, was the puckered, grey bullet wound over his heart, the one that mattered. The one that reminded him he was a freak. The pain became addictive, the thrill of putting himself in danger, of cheating death. The feeling of being special after a life of being oh-so average and insignificant, it was enough to drive bigger men to worse.

Ten years passed after his first attempt at suicide, and he found ways to pass his time. He wrote stories, elaborate novels about a man trapped in time, drifting through life in an attempt to find solidarity and hope within the cruel reality of life. This man was different from him. He felt. A problem he found in every word he wrote, a lack of feeling, of passion. He tried his hand at painting, but the result was the same. Though he was talented, there was no spice, no spark. Beauty without depth.

With his lack of emotion, he found another way to feel. He told stories to the children he visited, painted them pictures, taught them to read and write. The happiness, the joy and the feeling of being truly content, he let them feel it for him. The children in the orphanages would always ask why they were getting older, and why he was staying the same. He didn’t know. Would having an answer really change anything? All in all he’d still have to sit there and watch these children grow old and leave, or grow sick. Too many times he’d seen people die, and though he couldn’t name it, every time it happened he felt. And it hurt, like a knot twisting and tightening in his chest, as if he were remembering what sadness felt like. Vague, a scar of emotion.

You’d think time would pass by in a flash of memories and moments in history, but it was slow, painfully so. He felt every second as though he were part of an old clock, ticking away endlessly. History is made slowly, you don’t notice it happening, you don’t realise every step you take could change everything about the future. Life is short, a blur of happiness and sadness and beauty, but he’d been alive too long. July, 1855 – his seventy-seventh birthday. Maybe if he hadn’t have gone off to war he’d have lived a cosy, normal life, even if it wasn’t what he wanted. He could’ve watched his daughter grow up and marry, had her hold his wrinkled hands as he passed away into an endless sleep, a peaceful death. He longed for it, from his very core. Death. There was something beautiful about it, something he couldn’t attain. He was imperfect, wrong.

All around him people were changing, day by day they aged, they loved, they cried. Yet they were so afraid of death, of growing old, but they wasted the precious moments they had to live. Heechul wanted so much to grab someone, tell them how amazing life is, how every moment is worth living, that even sadness, even heartbreak is beautiful. He wanted to tell them to feel, to take everything they could get, to suck life dry until they grew wrinkled and grey and beautiful in age. How long had it been since he’d been warm, held close against another body, skin against skin and feeling so, so alive?

But not everything was bad. Sometimes he was oddly grateful for his long life, he got to see things. Beautiful things. He was never in a rush, every breath he took seemed to be slow and his eyes grew keen. He lay on grassy fields at night when he just couldn’t find sleep, watching the stars look back at him, blinking from a million miles away. He’d run his fingers through the cold grass, feeling life with his very hands. He’d watch the lights go out in the small houses on the outskirts of Hanyang, families closing their eyes for a brand new day. He’d watch the moths flutter in the moonlight, searching for incandescence. Life, though he didn’t belong as a part of it, being so close to it… sometimes it was enough.

He spent a good few decades just like that, feeling the Earth beneath his fingertips, the fresh air in his lungs. But he wanted more. He always wanted more. In the winter of 1881 he boarded a cargo ship to Japan. The place he’d died fighting to protect his country from changed into the biggest adventure of his life. He’d never been so close to the sea, living deep in the countryside of Korea, away from the hustle and bustle of the city. He was like a child, gripping the railing with fascination as the waves crashed around the ship, salty and cold as it splashed up at him. It was bitingly cold and a thick drizzle rained down from the dark clouds above, but he stayed, his fingers turning pale as they gripped the cold metal. He felt free. Alive.

Japan was beautiful. The trees, the smell, even the language. Buildings he’d never seen before, attitudes he’d never experienced. Everything was so different, so new. He spent years discovering everything he could, perfecting the language. The air was thicker there, not as fresh as Korea. Every day he would sit on the nearest hill to where he was sleeping, just watching people go about their days. It was as close to happy he’d felt in a long time, a feeling of satisfaction, of the hole inside him becoming a tiny bit smaller.

His peaceful way lasted long, and he passed into his 100’s. He’d stopped counting at 105, there was just no point to it. It wasn’t as though he were truly alive anyway. His silent days were cut short, though, at the dawn of World War II. Tension had been building, he didn’t ignore politics or the ways of the world, he just didn’t expect things to come so close to him after all those years spent in peace. And, though he could have, he didn’t sit it out. He wasn’t in Hiroshima on the day of the bombing, nobody knew it was coming.

He was in Nagasaki, at the Nagasaki Medical School and Hospital, when it was hit by light air explosives. He was talking to a young girl, with maybe only a few weeks left to live, when a blinding light spilled in through the windows and an ear splitting screech resounded through the building. The windows blew inwards, glass piercing his flesh as he held her close, whispering reassurances into her ear. He knew war, even if his experience was somewhat short, and it wasn’t something a child should have to live through. He remembered how she screamed, her tiny hands gripping the back of his light cotton shirt as her skin turned a sore red, as the room became wreathed in flame. She didn’t die, though, not instantly. He’d been severely burnt, a shard of glass penetrating his flesh through his back and piercing a lung. When he awoke, his skin was untouched, his hand entwined with her tiny, limp one. He’d never seen a child look so sad, her eyes were so afraid, wide and unblinking. She could barely breathe with the pain, she could barely move. He held that little girls hand until her eyes lost focus, until she grew cold. He didn’t feel sad, but he knew he should’ve. He knew he’d done all he could.

He knew he needed to do more.

The second time, he was stood in a small school, holding two young boys tightly to his chest as they crouched under a desk. The sirens were whirring, the building shaking as bombs fell nearby. Terror, he could see it in their eyes. There were no words to say, at least none he could find. They hadn’t had time to get to the bomb shelters, and he couldn’t leave them. All he could do was hold them, because everything was so much more terrifying alone. One of the boys started whispering a prayer under his breath, each word coming out shaky in between sobs. Faith was never something Heechul understood, but something compelled him to pray too, and the boy seemed to calm down. A muttered thank you through teary eyes, the last thing he saw, the last thing he heard, before pain washed over him followed by a numbness and the hard realisation that he just couldn’t save them, any of them, in the end.

There wasn’t ever such a devastating sight as that city after the bomb. He could still remember the dusty, scorched road beneath his battered boots, the cries and screams as mothers found their children’s remains, or worse, of children, lost and alone and searching for their parents, their families. A wasteland of ash and rubble, surrounded by sadness and pain and despair and he felt nothing. Not even a ghost of emotion, a twinge in his chest, just nothing. He left Japan, and he never went back. 

Korea changed rapidly after the war, and he found himself feeling lost in his own country, wandering aimlessly from town to town, alleyway to alleyway, gutter to gutter. He spent an entire week with his back against a dirty wall, sopping wet from rain, just sitting there, thinking. He’d seen too much, lived too long, deprived of feeling, of the warmth of happiness and love and everything he missed. And of all the things he wished he could feel, he had to feel hopelessness, despair. 1946, the start of his endless loop of waking and eating and hurting and sleeping and doing it all over again. He walked until his feet were sore, his shoes were barely holding on, just drifting endlessly, a ghost amongst the crowds of people. 

Nearly forty years passed, years spent drowning himself in liquor and drugs and numbness, anything to make time less painful to watch drift by. He was rarely sober, and that night wasn’t one of those rarities. December 8th, 1984, a cold winters night. His feet sloshed noisily through the puddles of a dark alleyway, his hair sopping wet and his jacket clinging to his thin form, making it hard to walk. He staggered through the dark, squinting through damp, black locks and running his hand along the rough, brick wall alongside him before his foot caught something and he felt the concrete bite into the flesh of his cheek, the pain dulled by the sheer amount of alcohol he’d been consuming the past six hours prior. He got back to his feet, an assortment of colourful curses already rolling off his loosened tongue before he turned to see what he’d tripped on.

A woman was looking up at him with wide, frightened eyes, her knees drawn up to her chest, holding a bundle tightly in her arms as if trying to hide it or protect it. A mess of tangled black hair curled from beneath the black rag covering her head, a thin, worn out blanket wrapped around her. His mind seemed to clear rapidly, and he kneeled beside her. She shrunk away, but he calmly reassured her he meant no harm, that it was okay. She didn’t seem to understand, mumbling words in Chinese. ‘Don’t take him,’she was saying, ‘please, don’t take him.’ She must’ve been a refugee, roughing it on the streets. What did she mean by ‘him’? Who did she think he was trying to take?

He whispered reassurances to her in her native language, the words sounding stiff on his tongue from years unpractised, and she seemed to calm down, looking at him properly. She hesitated for a second before casting her eyes down to the bundle pressed against her chest, and ever so slowly she lifted it in her arms, and she held it out towards him. ‘Please,’ she said, a tremor in her weak voice, ‘keep my baby safe.’ 

He took the bundle without a thought, but at those last words, and the feeling of warmth against his fingertips he stiffened. He drew back a corner of the cloth covering the bundle he held in his arms, revealing a small face, long lashes closed against pale skin, a rosy tint to its cheeks from the cold. ‘You can’t give me your child,’ he blurted with exasperation, looking into her eyes with confusion, but they were closing slowly, her body going limp against the wall. He shifted the child in his arms and reached out a hand to shake her gently, but she was ice cold. Her pale lips parted for a second, though, and she whispered in a fragile voice,

‘Han Geng.’


	3. Han Geng

For all the children he’d looked after, he had no idea what to do with an infant. In his previous life he’d never had the chance to be a father to his daughter; he didn’t know how to bring up a child. He couldn’t leave him, though, not in this bitter cold. His mother’s arms were frozen stiff around her child, but when he pulled the ball of blankets away it was warm. He held it close to his chest, though no warmth resided there, and walked with haste to his home. If you could call it a home, that is.

He’d been living there for quite some time; it seemed no one noticed it was even there. Compared to his previous dwellings - derelict factories, alleyways and small houses on the verge of collapse - this place was quite fancy. It was clean, for starters, already leagues away from what he was used to. He had electricity, water, heat. But it was devoid of life. Rain dripped with a heavy rhythm onto the bare, dusty floorboards through a crack in the roof, the door creaked shut behind him. His footsteps made no noise, no footprints in the dust; though he knew they’d groan and shriek beneath the weight of any other trespasser. The house was dark, but Heechul had no trouble moving around. He set blaze to the great hearth in the living room, illuminated the vast space. His paintings were propped lazily against the walls, papers scattered over old desks and cobwebs hanging from the flat, damp settees. He knelt before the fire, felt the heat upon his face, and unwrapped the bundle of blankets in his arms slowly and tenderly until a cherub-like face peered up at him with curious eyes. ‘Hello.’ He’d whispered to it. ‘I’ll keep you, for a while.’

Han Geng – as he’d assumed he was named – was a rather quiet baby. He couldn’t have been more than eight months old when he’d found him, and as soon as those big, brown eyes had looked up at him he just couldn’t give him away. Sometimes he wondered what madness had overtaken him when he’d vowed to keep the child, but he coped. While his house was modest, he made it as warm as he could. His paintings were hung at last, and the tales he’d written over the years found their use as bedtime stories when Geng was old enough to understand.

He didn’t let Geng out into the world. Not once. And maybe he was selfish for doing so, but in his heart he was scared that the if Geng saw the world he’d want to see more and more, and he’d leave Heechul. This was all he could come up with to keep Geng close. He told himself it was to keep Geng safe, but really he was just being greedy. He taught him Korean, Chinese, how to read and write. Everything he needed to know about the world outside he found out through books. Sometimes Heechul would let him look out of the window with him, when it snowed. Geng liked the snow. ‘It makes me think of you,’ he’d said once, watching the flakes flutter past. Some stuck to the glass, and Geng pressed his fingers to them, as if he thought he could reach through the glass and touch them himself. When Heechul had asked why, he’d shrugged his small shoulders, looked back out into the white wonderland. ‘It looks cold. But it’s pretty. It’s a nice cold.’ He smiled. ‘Cold and pretty and nice. Like you.’

Geng grew in the blink of an eye, and with age came curiosity. He wanted to know what the world looked like, the world he’d seen through written words and Heechul’s vivid tales. Heechul tried to paint pictures for him, to capture the beauty of the universe; but there was no depth to his illustrations and Geng grew restless. He’d trapped the boy for too long, he realised. It was cruel. He’d lived for more than a century, seen all the beauties the world had to offer, yet he’d allowed Geng to see only a scant preview. When he looked at the boy, he saw sad eyes. Eyes full of kindness and compassion; but they were lonely eyes, too. Geng needed friends, people his own age. He was too quiet and reserved for a six-year-old boy, preferring to sit and watch Heechul paint than start a conversation. He never complained. But even though he was a quiet boy, since the day Heechul had found him he’d filled his bleak, hopeless existence with warmth and wonder. Heechul wondered if this was happiness, and if it was happiness, why did it feel as if he was doing something wrong?

 It was Geng’s seventh birthday when Heechul finally let him go.

Geng had never had a birthday. Heechul had no idea when he was born, so he’d never thought to celebrate it. He decided it was February 9th, a cold day. Wind howled through the house and a blizzard whirled outside the window. They sat by the fire on the hard wooden floor, wrapped in blankets and watching the white world through the window. He’d made a cake, and they sipped hot chocolate as they ate it. Geng didn’t understand the occasion; it was just another day to him. The boy was entranced by the snow, as he always was, when Heechul placed a pile of clothes in his lap, a pair of shoes. ‘What’s this?’ The boy had asked.

‘A school uniform,’ Heechul had said. ‘You’re going to school.’

\--

There was no snow the next day, but the fall from the day before still coated every surface. Geng’s eyes had gone wide with stupor when he’d stepped outside, felt the snow crunch beneath his school shoes. He’d never felt snow before, and the wet, coldness of it had left him awestruck; at least until Heechul threw a great wad of it at his face, and a mighty snow ball fight had been waged. They ran to school, laughing as they slipped and slid over ice, and Heechul was soaked to the bone by the time they reached the school gates. How long had it been since he’d laughed? Smiled? But as he stood there, saw Geng turn to leave, the happiness left him.

‘Have a good day.’ He’d said, and he’d started to walk away when a small hand tugged at his arm. He looked back, Geng’s small face looking up at him with a concerned frown.

‘Why do you look so sad?’ He’d asked.

‘I’m not sad.’

‘Your eyes are sad.’

For a moment he was stunned to silence at the boys’ words. He read him like a book, and he was only a child. How could he see the emotion Heechul couldn’t even feel? But he shook his head and smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes.

‘I’m scared you might forget me.’ He said softly. His voice sounded odd though, strained and choked. Something wet rolled down his cheek and he rubbed it away. Tears. He was crying. Small, skinny, warm arms wrapped around his torso tightly, and when he looked down he saw Geng hugging him, his head pressed against his chest.

‘I’ll remember you.’ He said. He let go, then. He walked away. Heechul watched him disappear through the crowd of children, lost in a roar of faces. He felt colder than ever before, but there was warmth in his frozen heart. Somehow he believed him, this boy. 

Maybe this time someone would remember him. Maybe this boy wouldn’t forget.

He stood at the gates for an hour, maybe two. His feet had turned to ice, his fingers bone white. Tears streamed down his face but he didn’t sob. Soft flakes of snow started to fall, caught in his silken, wet hair, white against black. He felt the cold iron gate against his fingertips, and with one last long, lingering glance he left the school, left Geng, behind. He walked back to his cold, damp home. Snow blew inside as he entered; the door screaming shut behind him. He sat beside the fire, but it was unlit. He wrapped himself in the blankets he’d shared with the boy only a day before and he slept, long and deep.

And he disappeared.

 

\--

 

His feet crunched through the snow as he skipped across the playground. There were children everywhere, older and younger, and the building he walked towards was the biggest he’d ever seen. A smile was plastered onto his face and he sped up, dashing into the building and looking around in wonder. But he felt odd all of a sudden, his smile faltered. Why was he so wet? He saw snow on his shoes, on the shoulders of his coat. Was he playing in the snow? His smile had faded to a frown, how had he got here? His eyebrows furrowed, his eyes welled with tears. People were passing him by, giving him strange looks, but they started to blur. He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember anything. But he’d promised to remember. He was breathing heavily, his shoulders trembling. A hand touched his shoulder, a concerned face leaning down to ask what was wrong; but his tongue was like lead in his mouth and when he tried to speak all that came out was a dry, deep sob. He sank to his knees. Tears ran down his cheeks, his lower lip wobbled, and he balled his fists tightly as he cried.

He’d forgotten.

 

He was taken to the infirmary, where he cried so hard he fell asleep. When he woke up, his head throbbed. He was in a bed beside a window, a blanket draped over his small, skinny body. He sat up and rested his head on his knees. Snow had started to fall outside, thick white flakes. He thought they would feel soft on his skin, cold on his face. It would soak through his clothes and make his skin go pink and sore. It mesmerised him. Snow was so cold, uncaring. He loved the snow, but the snow loved no one. It was soft and beautiful, but beneath snow was ice. Ice was hard, brittle.  A woman entered the room and asked him how he felt.

‘I don’t like the snow anymore.’ He told her. ‘It hurts.’

 

The boy was diagnosed with amnesia. His whole life before his first day of school was a mystery, only his name and age were left behind in his application form, an elegant font sprawling across the pages was all that remained of the man who wrote it. And if he was quiet before, he was now a mute. His laughter still came easily, and he had a smile for everyone, but he spoke as little and as quietly as a ghost. Therapists had tried to understand his mind, to peel back the layers hiding his memories, but they found next to nothing; all Geng would talk about was the snow, and the man with the long black hair. If he tried to delve deeper into his past, his mind would scream at him, send jolts of burning pain through his veins and he’d scream, faint. They gave up on his past soon enough. He had no trouble making friends, though. People assumed he was quiet because he was Chinese, that he was struggling with the language.  He let them believe that. He was taken into care, fostered, adopted, and he left his adoptive home to live alone when he was seventeen. He had a job, a modest apartment, and friends. He left school with average grades, had average girlfriends – he was an average boy.

 

But sometimes he felt like somebody was watching him. He’d feel a familiar gaze burn into the back of his head, and he’d look around, but nobody would be there. There was always a name on the tip of his tongue, a fond, familiar name. It would die before it passed his lips, though. He’d forget what he was going to say. He thought little of these odd occurrences, shrugged them off as side effects of amnesia. But whenever he felt the sensation, turned around to see nothing, felt the word die on his lips, he felt emptiness inside. Raw and sore, an unhealed wound deep in his heart.

 

Han Geng was a handsome boy, tall and tanned and soft at heart. There was always a girl on his arm, in his bed. They were always wide eyed, with plump lips and shoulder-length black hair, so silken he’d run his fingers through it as they slept. He didn’t stay with any one of them for long; they always dumped him within a week. He was too cold, they’d say, and he agreed. He felt nothing for them, not one. There was a hole in his heart and not a single one of them could fill it, but they made him feel better, even for a moment. He didn’t use them, he was a gentleman. They were drawn to his kind, caring personality, and maybe his quietness gave him an air of mystery. Sometimes he’d see someone else when he lay with them, a face he loved, and he’d cry out a name as he climaxed, a name he wouldn’t remember uttering. ‘Who were you thinking of?’ one girl had asked, but he’d been bewildered by the question. She took it as a front, as if he was shrugging the question off. ‘You must really love them,’ she’d said, ‘because before you said their name I’d almost believed you loved me.’

 

When winter came and the leaves abandoned the trees, when the snow covered the world like a big white blanket, Geng had always been disquieted. The season made him sad, and when the snow fell he would be plagued by headaches, bad dreams.  Sometimes he’d lie in bed for days, shaking under his blankets and wishing for spring. His birthday was the worst, though. His friends used to invite him out for drinks; they’d ask him if he wanted a party, but not anymore. When he was younger, when he’d only just lost his memories, it hadn’t been too bad. He’d stomached the emptiness that gnawed at him. But as he’d grown older the emptiness, the hole in his heart, had consumed him. He grew feverish; and sometimes he’d kneel beside the toilet for hours, but he wouldn’t vomit once. It was the sensation, the churning of his guts, the feeling of falling. It made him feel as if he was spinning, spinning, spinning, endlessly. As if he was falling from space, tearing through the Earth’s atmosphere, through the soil and the rock and the fire until he came out the other side, and even then he continued to fall. And he always felt cold. So cold he’d shiver in a steaming bath, even if the water was so hot he’d step out with scalded red skin, tender to the gentlest touch.

 

When he’d left school, he hadn’t bothered with college. He was talented in martial arts and his teacher had handed his small gym over to Geng as soon as he’d left home. He didn’t get paid much, but it was enough. It was his twenty-third birthday, snowy and cool; but today he’d felt well enough to work. It was dark when he locked up the gym and he pulled his hood up to keep his ears warm, pushed his hands deep into his pockets. The snow rained down hard and heavy, as deep as his ankles, and he watched his feet as he walked. Something made him feel uneasy, and he wondered if his birthday sickness had finally kicked in; but this felt different somehow. He remembered the sensation, the feeling of being watched. It had been years since he’d felt eyes on his back, and just as before when he turned… there was no one; only passing strangers. Kids ran past screaming, snowballs flying back and forth as they laughed, and he found himself watching them with an odd expression. His head ached and he continued to walk home, as fast as his numb feet would carry him. Maybe he’d played in the snow before he’d lost his memories. Maybe he’d smiled like they had. But now the snow was a cold stranger to him, uncaring and bleak. It only caused him pain. The voices of strangers passing him by were muffled by his hood; the eyes on his back stared on endlessly. The pain in his head grew worse and worse as he walked home, so bad it felt as if it was being crushed, tighter and tighter it grew until he reached his apartment, breathless and groaning in agony.

 

His fingers fumbled clumsily with his keys, and when he managed to jam the stiff door open with a hard shove of his shoulder, he welcomed the warmth of his small apartment. His coat was soaked and his shoes were caked in snow and mud. He pulled them off, hung his coat over a radiator to dry and ran himself a hot bath to warm his frozen limbs. Somebody was setting off fireworks outside, he saw. Colours flashed, blurry through the steamy window in the bathroom. He imagined they were for him, to celebrate his birthday. He wouldn’t be doing any celebrating tonight, he never did. He just slept, and that’s all he could think of doing.

 

He didn’t bother eating. He took some painkillers and dove straight into his bed, wrapped himself in blankets like a caterpillar in its cocoon. He didn’t bother to close his blinds, and he watched the fireworks paint the snow-heavy clouds vibrant colours as he drifted off to sleep. He dreamt of a beautiful man; in his dream he couldn’t see the man’s face, but he knew he was beautiful somehow. He dreamt he was telling him a story, a long story about a man who couldn’t die; he never grew old, and he wandered and wandered from town to town, city to city, until one day he found-

 

‘Geng,’ Came a whisper, penetrating his dreams. His eyes opened wide, and when he saw him, his head felt as if it would collapse. But it was the man who collapsed first. His eyes had gone as wide as moons when Geng had woken up to find him leaning close, a pale hand on his cheek as fireworks screeched outside, casting a beautiful glow on the familiar face. The word had come out this time, though, and it rolled off his tongue the instant their eyes had met. “Heechul?” he’d blurted, and the man’s face was a picture of disbelief. He turned pale as a ghost, and in a matter of seconds he was lying flat on Geng’s bedroom floor, and the pain in his head had made Geng feel a bit like fainting himself.

 

\--

When Heechul woke up he was warm, and he took a while to open his eyes; but the moment he came to his senses, felt a soft pillow beneath his head, he shot up, eyes wide and wild. He was still in his snow-soaked clothes, and the sheets clung to his legs. When he saw Geng standing in the doorway, though, looking at him, staring at him, he was at a loss for words. His mouth ran dry and a shaky breath escaped his lips before Geng moved, spoke softly. ‘I ran you a bath,’ he said, and Heechul thought he was going to say more, but he just licked his lips nervously and left the room, leaving Heechul alone in the dark, his arms wrapped around his knees as he shuddered. He said his name, didn’t he? He remembered.

 

When he left Geng’s bedroom, he knew his way to the bathroom without having to ask. He’d been here before, countless times. He closed the bathroom door behind him and leaned against it, tilted his head back til it thumped against the wood. A deep, shuddering sigh left his lips. His mind couldn’t process what just happened, his chest hurt. He pulled off his damp clothes and stepped into the bath, letting the warmth seep into his weary, cold bones. He’d never expected Geng to see him. He’d never woken up before. Heechul often followed the young man here and there; countless times he’d snuck into Geng’s apartment and just sat at the end of his bed, watching him sleep. The years of loneliness had worn away at him, and he couldn’t stay away; but whenever he was around, Geng always seemed miserable. Sometimes when Heechul followed him home, he’d have a girl by his side, and Heechul would feel a twisted, knotted feeling in his gut at the sight. The girls he took home were always beautiful, tall and slim and milky-skinned and it made Heechul feel rotten. He had no reason to, though. What was he to Geng? He’d left him in the first place, and besides, he was like Geng’s father. He had no right to feel anything for the man; he’d brought him up, told him bed time stories, it was sick and wrong. But he’d grown tall and handsome and Heechul found himself following him no matter how hard he tried to stay away. But what if he was mistaken? He’d said his name, and his voice was soft and it sounded like a song when it left his lips, but what if it had been a matter of instinct, a memory left behind that triggered when he saw Heechul’s face? He must’ve frightened Geng half to death, standing there at the foot of his bed with his hair blown all over the place, face as pale as a ghost. He’d woken up in Geng’s bed, hadn’t he? The bed Geng slept in. He wondered how many girls had slept in that same bed; whether Geng was gentle with them, if his hands were as soft as his voice, if his lips tasted as good as they looked. He shook his head, droplets of water hitting the floor with quiet, wet thumps at the motion. He couldn’t think such thoughts. He was old, so much older than Geng. If the young man remembered him, he wondered if he saw him as he had when he was a child; a father, an older brother What if he resented him for abandoning him? He closed his eyes. Geng was like a drug, he thought. Without him he felt hollow and old, older than his timeless outer shell could tell. But when Geng was near, it was as if his nerves were set alight, his skin would feel warm to the touch and sometimes he imagined he could hear his frozen heart beating. He opened his eyes, and he could see himself in the mirror above the sink, and his heart sunk at his reflection. He was so thin; his collar bones jutted out of his milky skin and his eyes seemed too dark and big for his face. His naturally red lips were a pale pink and his cheeks were hollow and flushed from the heat of the bath. He hated it. He couldn’t look any longer. He scrubbed at his skin til it was pink and sore and his face was red with tears. Since when had his tears flowed so easily? There was a burning in his chest, searing hot, and his hands scrabbled at the skin there, gasping in agony. His heart. Water sloshed over the rim of the bath as he writhed in pain, his teeth bit into his lower lip so hard that he drew blood. He thought he was about to die, truly, but then a gentle knock on the door cut through his agony and Geng’s gentle voice sounded from outside. He sucked in a desperate, drowning breath as the pain receded. What just happened? His hands were shaking, he reached for a towel. Geng started to speak.

 

‘I knew it was you. I remember everything. You look the same as you did when I was little,’ he heard him say softly from the other side of the door, but it was loud in Heechul’s ears, even if his own breaths were loud and rasping. ‘Why did you leave? What did I do?’ He sounded as if he was about to cry, and Heechul opened his mouth to object, tell him that he didn’t leave by any fault of his, but he heard his weight thud against the door, heard him sink to the floor outside before he continued in a flurry of words, his voice rough with repressed tears. ‘I promised not to forget. Why did I forget? But I remember now. You look the same, Heechul. I used to dream about you. You’d tell me stories and we’d watch the snow… I was happy with you, you know. You’ve been following me, haven’t you? I always felt like something was missing, ever since you left. You’ve been watching me for a while; I could feel it, sometimes. I’d turn around ready to shout your name but whenever I looked back you’d be gone and I’d forget all over again.’ He heard him sigh. Heechul stood, wrapped the towel around his skinny waist and padded over to the door as quietly as he could, and he stood there, just listening. ‘When I woke up and saw you standing there, something just… clicked. It’s as if I’ve been waiting for you to come back this whole time.’

Heechul felt his cheeks redden at his words, his fists balled tightly in the hem of his towel. ‘While you were sleeping I… I sat and watched for a while. I remember you being pale and cold but seeing you again… it’s as if you’re made of ice. I always had this foggy image of you at the back of my mind; black hair and a pretty face. I always remembered that. You look exactly the same, Heechul… It makes no sense. You should be in your fifties by now, surely, but it’s as if you haven’t aged a day. I won’t ask why, though. You might run away again.’ He paused, ‘I don’t want you to run away again.’

 

His breath caught at the change in Geng’s voice. A knot of guilt started to tighten in his gut and he gritted his teeth. Not a day had passed when he hadn’t regretted leaving Geng behind, but it was the only thing he could’ve done. He reached tentatively for the door handle, but hesitated. In that moment, Geng spoke again.

 

‘I don’t know how you think of me now, I don’t know if you still see me as a little boy, but when I saw your face again I realised every girl I’ve ever chased after, even slept with… they all looked like you, every single one. But none of them were as beautiful as you. I always felt like something was wrong. No matter how many girls I met… they were all wrong, because it was you. It was you all along.’

 

\--

A pregnant silence hung there, a door between them, and Geng suddenly wondered if Heechul had escaped out of the bathroom window. He got to his feet, feeling a red flush creep down his neck. He shifted from foot to foot nervously, reaching for the door handle, but it twisted before his fingers touched it. His eyes met Heechul’s and his heart pounded so loud he thought Heechul could hear it too. His eyes wandered, took in every inch of the man before him in a matter of seconds, from his flushed cheeks to his jutting hipbones, scarcely covered by the towel that hung on them precariously. He could hear Heechul’s breathing, as loud as his own, and he watched with fascination as a droplet of water fell from Heechul’s hair, rolled down his pale chest, and in a matter of seconds his lips were against the older mans, insistent and needy and… right.

 

Heechul’s skin was cold to the touch while Geng was like fire, and when their lips separated for air he wondered if he was still dreaming. But Heechul gave him no time to think, locked their lips once again and Geng pushed him against the nearest wall, kissed him deeper. He felt long legs wrap around his hips, Heechul moaning against his lips.

 

He felt alive.

 _ **Han Geng.**_  Chapter Two.

 

 

For all the children he’d looked after, he had no idea what to do with an infant. In his previous life he’d never had the chance to be a father to his daughter; he didn’t know how to bring up a child. He couldn’t leave him, though, not in this bitter cold. His mother’s arms were frozen stiff around her child, but when he pulled the ball of blankets away it was warm. He held it close to his chest, though no warmth resided there, and walked with haste to his home. If you could call it a home, that is.

He’d been living there for quite some time; it seemed no one noticed it was even there. Compared to his previous dwellings - derelict factories, alleyways and small houses on the verge of collapse - this place was quite fancy. It was clean, for starters, already leagues away from what he was used to. He had electricity, water, heat. But it was devoid of life. Rain dripped with a heavy rhythm onto the bare, dusty floorboards through a crack in the roof, the door creaked shut behind him. His footsteps made no noise, no footprints in the dust; though he knew they’d groan and shriek beneath the weight of any other trespasser. The house was dark, but Heechul had no trouble moving around. He set blaze to the great hearth in the living room, illuminated the vast space. His paintings were propped lazily against the walls, papers scattered over old desks and cobwebs hanging from the flat, damp settees. He knelt before the fire, felt the heat upon his face, and unwrapped the bundle of blankets in his arms slowly and tenderly until a cherub-like face peered up at him with curious eyes. ‘Hello.’ He’d whispered to it. ‘I’ll keep you, for a while.’

Han Geng – as he’d assumed he was named – was a rather quiet baby. He couldn’t have been more than eight months old when he’d found him, and as soon as those big, brown eyes had looked up at him he just couldn’t give him away. Sometimes he wondered what madness had overtaken him when he’d vowed to keep the child, but he coped. While his house was modest, he made it as warm as he could. His paintings were hung at last, and the tales he’d written over the years found their use as bedtime stories when Geng was old enough to understand.

He didn’t let Geng out into the world. Not once. And maybe he was selfish for doing so, but in his heart he was scared that the if Geng saw the world he’d want to see more and more, and he’d leave Heechul. This was all he could come up with to keep Geng close. He told himself it was to keep Geng safe, but really he was just being greedy. He taught him Korean, Chinese, how to read and write. Everything he needed to know about the world outside he found out through books. Sometimes Heechul would let him look out of the window with him, when it snowed. Geng liked the snow. ‘It makes me think of you,’ he’d said once, watching the flakes flutter past. Some stuck to the glass, and Geng pressed his fingers to them, as if he thought he could reach through the glass and touch them himself. When Heechul had asked why, he’d shrugged his small shoulders, looked back out into the white wonderland. ‘It looks cold. But it’s pretty. It’s a nice cold.’ He smiled. ‘Cold and pretty and nice. Like you.’

Geng grew in the blink of an eye, and with age came curiosity. He wanted to know what the world looked like, the world he’d seen through written words and Heechul’s vivid tales. Heechul tried to paint pictures for him, to capture the beauty of the universe; but there was no depth to his illustrations and Geng grew restless. He’d trapped the boy for too long, he realised. It was cruel. He’d lived for more than a century, seen all the beauties the world had to offer, yet he’d allowed Geng to see only a scant preview. When he looked at the boy, he saw sad eyes. Eyes full of kindness and compassion; but they were lonely eyes, too. Geng needed friends, people his own age. He was too quiet and reserved for a six-year-old boy, preferring to sit and watch Heechul paint than start a conversation. He never complained. But even though he was a quiet boy, since the day Heechul had found him he’d filled his bleak, hopeless existence with warmth and wonder. Heechul wondered if this was happiness, and if it was happiness, why did it feel as if he was doing something wrong?

 It was Geng’s seventh birthday when Heechul finally let him go.

Geng had never had a birthday. Heechul had no idea when he was born, so he’d never thought to celebrate it. He decided it was February 9th, a cold day. Wind howled through the house and a blizzard whirled outside the window. They sat by the fire on the hard wooden floor, wrapped in blankets and watching the white world through the window. He’d made a cake, and they sipped hot chocolate as they ate it. Geng didn’t understand the occasion; it was just another day to him. The boy was entranced by the snow, as he always was, when Heechul placed a pile of clothes in his lap, a pair of shoes. ‘What’s this?’ The boy had asked.

‘A school uniform,’ Heechul had said. ‘You’re going to school.’

\--

There was no snow the next day, but the fall from the day before still coated every surface. Geng’s eyes had gone wide with stupor when he’d stepped outside, felt the snow crunch beneath his school shoes. He’d never felt snow before, and the wet, coldness of it had left him awestruck; at least until Heechul threw a great wad of it at his face, and a mighty snow ball fight had been waged. They ran to school, laughing as they slipped and slid over ice, and Heechul was soaked to the bone by the time they reached the school gates. How long had it been since he’d laughed? Smiled? But as he stood there, saw Geng turn to leave, the happiness left him.

‘Have a good day.’ He’d said, and he’d started to walk away when a small hand tugged at his arm. He looked back, Geng’s small face looking up at him with a concerned frown.

‘Why do you look so sad?’ He’d asked.

‘I’m not sad.’

‘Your eyes are sad.’

For a moment he was stunned to silence at the boys’ words. He read him like a book, and he was only a child. How could he see the emotion Heechul couldn’t even feel? But he shook his head and smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes.

‘I’m scared you might forget me.’ He said softly. His voice sounded odd though, strained and choked. Something wet rolled down his cheek and he rubbed it away. Tears. He was crying. Small, skinny, warm arms wrapped around his torso tightly, and when he looked down he saw Geng hugging him, his head pressed against his chest.

‘I’ll remember you.’ He said. He let go, then. He walked away. Heechul watched him disappear through the crowd of children, lost in a roar of faces. He felt colder than ever before, but there was warmth in his frozen heart. Somehow he believed him, this boy. 

Maybe this time someone would remember him. Maybe this boy wouldn’t forget.

He stood at the gates for an hour, maybe two. His feet had turned to ice, his fingers bone white. Tears streamed down his face but he didn’t sob. Soft flakes of snow started to fall, caught in his silken, wet hair, white against black. He felt the cold iron gate against his fingertips, and with one last long, lingering glance he left the school, left Geng, behind. He walked back to his cold, damp home. Snow blew inside as he entered; the door screaming shut behind him. He sat beside the fire, but it was unlit. He wrapped himself in the blankets he’d shared with the boy only a day before and he slept, long and deep.

And he disappeared.

 

\--

 

His feet crunched through the snow as he skipped across the playground. There were children everywhere, older and younger, and the building he walked towards was the biggest he’d ever seen. A smile was plastered onto his face and he sped up, dashing into the building and looking around in wonder. But he felt odd all of a sudden, his smile faltered. Why was he so wet? He saw snow on his shoes, on the shoulders of his coat. Was he playing in the snow? His smile had faded to a frown, how had he got here? His eyebrows furrowed, his eyes welled with tears. People were passing him by, giving him strange looks, but they started to blur. He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember anything. But he’d promised to remember. He was breathing heavily, his shoulders trembling. A hand touched his shoulder, a concerned face leaning down to ask what was wrong; but his tongue was like lead in his mouth and when he tried to speak all that came out was a dry, deep sob. He sank to his knees. Tears ran down his cheeks, his lower lip wobbled, and he balled his fists tightly as he cried.

He’d forgotten.

 

He was taken to the infirmary, where he cried so hard he fell asleep. When he woke up, his head throbbed. He was in a bed beside a window, a blanket draped over his small, skinny body. He sat up and rested his head on his knees. Snow had started to fall outside, thick white flakes. He thought they would feel soft on his skin, cold on his face. It would soak through his clothes and make his skin go pink and sore. It mesmerised him. Snow was so cold, uncaring. He loved the snow, but the snow loved no one. It was soft and beautiful, but beneath snow was ice. Ice was hard, brittle.  A woman entered the room and asked him how he felt.

‘I don’t like the snow anymore.’ He told her. ‘It hurts.’

 

The boy was diagnosed with amnesia. His whole life before his first day of school was a mystery, only his name and age were left behind in his application form, an elegant font sprawling across the pages was all that remained of the man who wrote it. And if he was quiet before, he was now a mute. His laughter still came easily, and he had a smile for everyone, but he spoke as little and as quietly as a ghost. Therapists had tried to understand his mind, to peel back the layers hiding his memories, but they found next to nothing; all Geng would talk about was the snow, and the man with the long black hair. If he tried to delve deeper into his past, his mind would scream at him, send jolts of burning pain through his veins and he’d scream, faint. They gave up on his past soon enough. He had no trouble making friends, though. People assumed he was quiet because he was Chinese, that he was struggling with the language.  He let them believe that. He was taken into care, fostered, adopted, and he left his adoptive home to live alone when he was seventeen. He had a job, a modest apartment, and friends. He left school with average grades, had average girlfriends – he was an average boy.

 

But sometimes he felt like somebody was watching him. He’d feel a familiar gaze burn into the back of his head, and he’d look around, but nobody would be there. There was always a name on the tip of his tongue, a fond, familiar name. It would die before it passed his lips, though. He’d forget what he was going to say. He thought little of these odd occurrences, shrugged them off as side effects of amnesia. But whenever he felt the sensation, turned around to see nothing, felt the word die on his lips, he felt emptiness inside. Raw and sore, an unhealed wound deep in his heart.

 

Han Geng was a handsome boy, tall and tanned and soft at heart. There was always a girl on his arm, in his bed. They were always wide eyed, with plump lips and shoulder-length black hair, so silken he’d run his fingers through it as they slept. He didn’t stay with any one of them for long; they always dumped him within a week. He was too cold, they’d say, and he agreed. He felt nothing for them, not one. There was a hole in his heart and not a single one of them could fill it, but they made him feel better, even for a moment. He didn’t use them, he was a gentleman. They were drawn to his kind, caring personality, and maybe his quietness gave him an air of mystery. Sometimes he’d see someone else when he lay with them, a face he loved, and he’d cry out a name as he climaxed, a name he wouldn’t remember uttering. ‘Who were you thinking of?’ one girl had asked, but he’d been bewildered by the question. She took it as a front, as if he was shrugging the question off. ‘You must really love them,’ she’d said, ‘because before you said their name I’d almost believed you loved me.’

 

When winter came and the leaves abandoned the trees, when the snow covered the world like a big white blanket, Geng had always been disquieted. The season made him sad, and when the snow fell he would be plagued by headaches, bad dreams.  Sometimes he’d lie in bed for days, shaking under his blankets and wishing for spring. His birthday was the worst, though. His friends used to invite him out for drinks; they’d ask him if he wanted a party, but not anymore. When he was younger, when he’d only just lost his memories, it hadn’t been too bad. He’d stomached the emptiness that gnawed at him. But as he’d grown older the emptiness, the hole in his heart, had consumed him. He grew feverish; and sometimes he’d kneel beside the toilet for hours, but he wouldn’t vomit once. It was the sensation, the churning of his guts, the feeling of falling. It made him feel as if he was spinning, spinning, spinning, endlessly. As if he was falling from space, tearing through the Earth’s atmosphere, through the soil and the rock and the fire until he came out the other side, and even then he continued to fall. And he always felt cold. So cold he’d shiver in a steaming bath, even if the water was so hot he’d step out with scalded red skin, tender to the gentlest touch.

 

When he’d left school, he hadn’t bothered with college. He was talented in martial arts and his teacher had handed his small gym over to Geng as soon as he’d left home. He didn’t get paid much, but it was enough. It was his twenty-third birthday, snowy and cool; but today he’d felt well enough to work. It was dark when he locked up the gym and he pulled his hood up to keep his ears warm, pushed his hands deep into his pockets. The snow rained down hard and heavy, as deep as his ankles, and he watched his feet as he walked. Something made him feel uneasy, and he wondered if his birthday sickness had finally kicked in; but this felt different somehow. He remembered the sensation, the feeling of being watched. It had been years since he’d felt eyes on his back, and just as before when he turned… there was no one; only passing strangers. Kids ran past screaming, snowballs flying back and forth as they laughed, and he found himself watching them with an odd expression. His head ached and he continued to walk home, as fast as his numb feet would carry him. Maybe he’d played in the snow before he’d lost his memories. Maybe he’d smiled like they had. But now the snow was a cold stranger to him, uncaring and bleak. It only caused him pain. The voices of strangers passing him by were muffled by his hood; the eyes on his back stared on endlessly. The pain in his head grew worse and worse as he walked home, so bad it felt as if it was being crushed, tighter and tighter it grew until he reached his apartment, breathless and groaning in agony.

 

His fingers fumbled clumsily with his keys, and when he managed to jam the stiff door open with a hard shove of his shoulder, he welcomed the warmth of his small apartment. His coat was soaked and his shoes were caked in snow and mud. He pulled them off, hung his coat over a radiator to dry and ran himself a hot bath to warm his frozen limbs. Somebody was setting off fireworks outside, he saw. Colours flashed, blurry through the steamy window in the bathroom. He imagined they were for him, to celebrate his birthday. He wouldn’t be doing any celebrating tonight, he never did. He just slept, and that’s all he could think of doing.

 

He didn’t bother eating. He took some painkillers and dove straight into his bed, wrapped himself in blankets like a caterpillar in its cocoon. He didn’t bother to close his blinds, and he watched the fireworks paint the snow-heavy clouds vibrant colours as he drifted off to sleep. He dreamt of a beautiful man; in his dream he couldn’t see the man’s face, but he knew he was beautiful somehow. He dreamt he was telling him a story, a long story about a man who couldn’t die; he never grew old, and he wandered and wandered from town to town, city to city, until one day he found-

 

‘Geng,’ Came a whisper, penetrating his dreams. His eyes opened wide, and when he saw him, his head felt as if it would collapse. But it was the man who collapsed first. His eyes had gone as wide as moons when Geng had woken up to find him leaning close, a pale hand on his cheek as fireworks screeched outside, casting a beautiful glow on the familiar face. The word had come out this time, though, and it rolled off his tongue the instant their eyes had met. “Heechul?” he’d blurted, and the man’s face was a picture of disbelief. He turned pale as a ghost, and in a matter of seconds he was lying flat on Geng’s bedroom floor, and the pain in his head had made Geng feel a bit like fainting himself.

 

\--

When Heechul woke up he was warm, and he took a while to open his eyes; but the moment he came to his senses, felt a soft pillow beneath his head, he shot up, eyes wide and wild. He was still in his snow-soaked clothes, and the sheets clung to his legs. When he saw Geng standing in the doorway, though, looking at him, staring at him, he was at a loss for words. His mouth ran dry and a shaky breath escaped his lips before Geng moved, spoke softly. ‘I ran you a bath,’ he said, and Heechul thought he was going to say more, but he just licked his lips nervously and left the room, leaving Heechul alone in the dark, his arms wrapped around his knees as he shuddered. He said his name, didn’t he? He remembered.

 

When he left Geng’s bedroom, he knew his way to the bathroom without having to ask. He’d been here before, countless times. He closed the bathroom door behind him and leaned against it, tilted his head back til it thumped against the wood. A deep, shuddering sigh left his lips. His mind couldn’t process what just happened, his chest hurt. He pulled off his damp clothes and stepped into the bath, letting the warmth seep into his weary, cold bones. He’d never expected Geng to see him. He’d never woken up before. Heechul often followed the young man here and there; countless times he’d snuck into Geng’s apartment and just sat at the end of his bed, watching him sleep. The years of loneliness had worn away at him, and he couldn’t stay away; but whenever he was around, Geng always seemed miserable. Sometimes when Heechul followed him home, he’d have a girl by his side, and Heechul would feel a twisted, knotted feeling in his gut at the sight. The girls he took home were always beautiful, tall and slim and milky-skinned and it made Heechul feel rotten. He had no reason to, though. What was he to Geng? He’d left him in the first place, and besides, he was like Geng’s father. He had no right to feel anything for the man; he’d brought him up, told him bed time stories, it was sick and wrong. But he’d grown tall and handsome and Heechul found himself following him no matter how hard he tried to stay away. But what if he was mistaken? He’d said his name, and his voice was soft and it sounded like a song when it left his lips, but what if it had been a matter of instinct, a memory left behind that triggered when he saw Heechul’s face? He must’ve frightened Geng half to death, standing there at the foot of his bed with his hair blown all over the place, face as pale as a ghost. He’d woken up in Geng’s bed, hadn’t he? The bed Geng slept in. He wondered how many girls had slept in that same bed; whether Geng was gentle with them, if his hands were as soft as his voice, if his lips tasted as good as they looked. He shook his head, droplets of water hitting the floor with quiet, wet thumps at the motion. He couldn’t think such thoughts. He was old, so much older than Geng. If the young man remembered him, he wondered if he saw him as he had when he was a child; a father, an older brother What if he resented him for abandoning him? He closed his eyes. Geng was like a drug, he thought. Without him he felt hollow and old, older than his timeless outer shell could tell. But when Geng was near, it was as if his nerves were set alight, his skin would feel warm to the touch and sometimes he imagined he could hear his frozen heart beating. He opened his eyes, and he could see himself in the mirror above the sink, and his heart sunk at his reflection. He was so thin; his collar bones jutted out of his milky skin and his eyes seemed too dark and big for his face. His naturally red lips were a pale pink and his cheeks were hollow and flushed from the heat of the bath. He hated it. He couldn’t look any longer. He scrubbed at his skin til it was pink and sore and his face was red with tears. Since when had his tears flowed so easily? There was a burning in his chest, searing hot, and his hands scrabbled at the skin there, gasping in agony. His heart. Water sloshed over the rim of the bath as he writhed in pain, his teeth bit into his lower lip so hard that he drew blood. He thought he was about to die, truly, but then a gentle knock on the door cut through his agony and Geng’s gentle voice sounded from outside. He sucked in a desperate, drowning breath as the pain receded. What just happened? His hands were shaking, he reached for a towel. Geng started to speak.

 

‘I knew it was you. I remember everything. You look the same as you did when I was little,’ he heard him say softly from the other side of the door, but it was loud in Heechul’s ears, even if his own breaths were loud and rasping. ‘Why did you leave? What did I do?’ He sounded as if he was about to cry, and Heechul opened his mouth to object, tell him that he didn’t leave by any fault of his, but he heard his weight thud against the door, heard him sink to the floor outside before he continued in a flurry of words, his voice rough with repressed tears. ‘I promised not to forget. Why did I forget? But I remember now. You look the same, Heechul. I used to dream about you. You’d tell me stories and we’d watch the snow… I was happy with you, you know. You’ve been following me, haven’t you? I always felt like something was missing, ever since you left. You’ve been watching me for a while; I could feel it, sometimes. I’d turn around ready to shout your name but whenever I looked back you’d be gone and I’d forget all over again.’ He heard him sigh. Heechul stood, wrapped the towel around his skinny waist and padded over to the door as quietly as he could, and he stood there, just listening. ‘When I woke up and saw you standing there, something just… clicked. It’s as if I’ve been waiting for you to come back this whole time.’

Heechul felt his cheeks redden at his words, his fists balled tightly in the hem of his towel. ‘While you were sleeping I… I sat and watched for a while. I remember you being pale and cold but seeing you again… it’s as if you’re made of ice. I always had this foggy image of you at the back of my mind; black hair and a pretty face. I always remembered that. You look exactly the same, Heechul… It makes no sense. You should be in your fifties by now, surely, but it’s as if you haven’t aged a day. I won’t ask why, though. You might run away again.’ He paused, ‘I don’t want you to run away again.’

 

His breath caught at the change in Geng’s voice. A knot of guilt started to tighten in his gut and he gritted his teeth. Not a day had passed when he hadn’t regretted leaving Geng behind, but it was the only thing he could’ve done. He reached tentatively for the door handle, but hesitated. In that moment, Geng spoke again.

 

‘I don’t know how you think of me now, I don’t know if you still see me as a little boy, but when I saw your face again I realised every girl I’ve ever chased after, even slept with… they all looked like you, every single one. But none of them were as beautiful as you. I always felt like something was wrong. No matter how many girls I met… they were all wrong, because it was you. It was you all along.’

 

\--

A pregnant silence hung there, a door between them, and Geng suddenly wondered if Heechul had escaped out of the bathroom window. He got to his feet, feeling a red flush creep down his neck. He shifted from foot to foot nervously, reaching for the door handle, but it twisted before his fingers touched it. His eyes met Heechul’s and his heart pounded so loud he thought Heechul could hear it too. His eyes wandered, took in every inch of the man before him in a matter of seconds, from his flushed cheeks to his jutting hipbones, scarcely covered by the towel that hung on them precariously. He could hear Heechul’s breathing, as loud as his own, and he watched with fascination as a droplet of water fell from Heechul’s hair, rolled down his pale chest, and in a matter of seconds his lips were against the older mans, insistent and needy and… right.

 

Heechul’s skin was cold to the touch while Geng was like fire, and when their lips separated for air he wondered if he was still dreaming. But Heechul gave him no time to think, locked their lips once again and Geng pushed him against the nearest wall, kissed him deeper. He felt long legs wrap around his hips, Heechul moaning against his lips.

 

He felt alive.

%MCEPASTEBIN%


	4. Final

Hankyung’s touch was hot and firm and Heechul lost himself in it. He heard him whisper, breathless between kisses, ‘You’re so cold,’ and when Heechul opened his eyes he only saw pain in Hankyung’s face, his eyes shut tight and his eyebrows furrowed. He wondered if he really was that cold, that unpleasant. The younger man persisted with his fumblings, but he could see his disappointment at Heechul’s lack of excitement clearly. He pushed him away, wordlessly, and a look of confusion and rejection flitted over his young, handsome face. It faded instantly, though, as in seconds he was on his back, Heechul grinding against his manhood. The shock of Heechul’s cool, smooth skin against his member made Hankyung blink back stars, curse, and Heechul watched the quivering of his abdomen, revelled in the soft, halted gasp he elicited as his fingers fluttered over his hot skin, down, down, ever southwards until he felt soft hair beneath his fingers.

As Heechul’s tightness wrapped around him, the moan that escaped Hankyung’s clenched teeth was raw and feral, pleasure and pain blending into one. He was a roaring fire inside Heechul, a sensation he had never experienced before, his body trembling at the absolute heat whilst Hankyung choked at the iciness of Heechul’s body. He raised his skinny frame for a second, hearing Hankyung gasp, before slamming himself back down and feeling his blunt nails rake up his thighs. Where Hankyung was losing his mind, Heechul felt nothing; while Hankyung panted desperately, Heechul had no breath to lose.

When he came, which didn’t take long at all, Hankyung’s eyes were filled with hurt and broken pride at the sight of Heechul’s flaccidity, but Heechul lay beside him then, with a smile he didn’t feel. He gave him a soft, cold kiss. He told Hankyung to sleep.

And he did, but not before he gave Heechul one last, long look, fear and mistrust in his dark brown eyes. He watched Hankyung fall asleep, his icy fingers stroking his cheek as his breathing deepened and soft puffs of air left his lips.

The sheets tangled around his legs when he sat up, his inky black hair stark against his pale skin as he held his head in his hands. What had he done? He couldn’t tell if it was right or wrong, to let this boy fall in love with him, to hold him in his arms. Heechul wasn’t real, and even if he wanted Hankyung, he couldn’t let Hankyung want him. How had this happened? How cruel he was to let this boy indulge in him only to run away again. He hadn’t felt a thing, nothing, but why? How could he feel nothing when he wanted Hankyung so terribly? It wasn’t fair.

Hankyung’s voice jolted him from his thoughts, his soft mumbling voice muffled by his pillow. ‘Don’t go.’ He heard him whisper. He was sleep talking, he knew, but that only chilled him more. He felt hot fingers crawling into his open palm, weaving through his own and clasping his hand tightly. He didn’t return the grasp, didn’t close his fingers around Hankyung’s. He didn’t want to go, but he had to. He had nothing to give this boy, only cold kisses and empty embraces; he had no womb to bear him a child, all he could do was watch him grow old as he stayed young, see him die as he lived on alone and broken.

He sat there, almost frozen in time, and only when the pale dawn light came filtering through the slits in the blinds did he come to his senses. His face was wet, his neck, the sheets covering his knees. He’d been crying the whole time, all these hours. He wiped his face on the sheets before throwing them aside. He didn’t look at Hankyung when he left the room.

His clothes were dry and warm against his skin, but when he took one last peek at Hankyung’s sleeping face the warmth seemed to ebb away. He walked to his bedside, brushed back the hair from his forehead and kissed him softly. As he walked away he heard Hankyung whisper, ‘You’ll come back. I’ll be waiting.’

And as he closed his bedroom door, he found himself hoping he was right.

 

\--

Months passed like seconds and it seemed as if every time Heechul blinked another day would pass. He found himself reading the same books over and over until the pages were yellowed and faded, til the words were unreadable. Everything he painted became bland, devoid of colour and wonder, black and grey portraits all resembling a boy he’d left behind. When sleep came it hit him hard, as if he’d been caught in a wave and pulled under, drowning in the dark depths; a sprawling empty void of time, and when he awoke it was to the smell of damp, of cold, the sound of rain dripping onto the dusty floorboards through the crack in the ceiling. His appetite waned and faded until he ate nothing at all, as did his thirst, yet he grew no thinner. Damp crawled down the walls and ivy crept in through the broken windows, rats skittering across the floor and birds nesting in the rafters.

Sometimes it snowed, sometimes it rained, sometimes dead leaves would blow across the floor, but Heechul never moved. He sat in the same worn, dampened seat, unmoving as a statue, covered with dust. The only colour in his face was his lips, crimson and trembling, his eyes glazed and unseeing and wordlessly sad. Endlessly he thought of what he left behind, how he walked away from his only chance of being loved. How hurt that boy must’ve been when he’d woken up alone, wondering if it had all been a dream. He’d said he’d be waiting, didn’t he? Heechul wondered if it was true.

A cold wind blew through the crack in the window, autumn gold leaves rustling on the breeze and scattering noisily on the dusty floor. At that moment, he stirred, his fingers twitching softly. He felt the rough armchair beneath his fingertips, his bare toes on the cold wooden floor, the dryness of his lips. He looked around slowly with old, tired eyes, and he wondered how long he’d been here, because the last time he’d looked out of the window it had been winter, a blank canvas of white snow but now all he saw was reds and oranges, pale autumn sunlight burning his eyes.

When he got to his feet a cloud of dust rose from his seat, and every footstep was like a whisper. He left the shell of a house behind, the place that had once been full of warmth, his bare feet soundless against the sidewalk. The world moved around him, a blur of faces and voices, sounds and movement, so fast it seemed he was standing still. He didn’t know where he was going, but he soon found himself standing before a door. Ivy overgrew the doorway, wild flowers encroaching on the path. When he touched the door handle, the door swung open with a creak, and as he stepped inside the wind sighed, blowing leaves into the hallway, scratching along the walls. They climbed up the stairs and Heechul climbed after them, step after step until he came before another door, a single leaf trapped beneath it. He tapped the door softly, and as it opened he felt a sudden chill come over him. Leaves covered the floor of the small bedroom, all shades or amber and crimson; branches reached through the open window and cradled the small bed, a single candle burning away in a pool of wax on the bedside table.

And on the bed lay an old man, his face lined with sorrow and time. Heechul walked towards him, and not a single leaf crunched underfoot. At first he thought the man had passed away, but as he drew nearer he saw him drawing soft, slow breaths through his thin lips. He was alive, but only just. He knew this man, even as the years had worn him away, he still knew him. He walked closer, sat softly beside him on the bed and he took his thin hand into his own, his skin still as hot as he remembered, just as soft. He touched his fingers softly, traced the lines on his palms and stared in disbelief. How long had it been since he’d left this man, how many years had passed that he’d ended up so old and frail. And how cruel could the God’s be to lead him back here again only to watch him die.

‘I waited.’

Heechul looked up at the old man, shocked at his sudden speech. He found himself looking into a pair of familiar chocolate eyes, dim and soft and sad. A smile was on the man’s lips, lips Heechul remembered as if he’d kissed them only yesterday. ‘How long has it been?’ Heechul asked, his voice hoarse and choked, his tongue heavy in his mouth as if he’d never spoken before.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Hankyung smiled weakly, ‘you’re here now.’ His hand turned in Heechul’s, entwining his fingers and giving a soft squeeze. ‘I would’ve waited forever.’

‘You’re dying.’ Heechul whispered, almost as if he thought Hankyung would deny it, prove him wrong. But he only looked away, let a soft sigh escape his lips.

‘Everybody dies. Everybody grows old.’ He looked at Heechul, then. ‘Everybody but you. Why is that? I never figured it out.’ He laughed softly, and Heechul could see the effort it took, his whole body seeming to tremble from the tiny action. He started to cough, dots of red spattering on the bedsheets. When he caught his breath, he closed his eyes. ‘I’m not dying yet, though. I’m just going back to sleep.’

‘I’m feeling tired, too.’ Heechul lied. He lifted the duvet, warmth rushing against his cold body as he lay beside Hankyung’s frail old body. Their hands were clasped between them, still. He turned on his side, felt his lips start to tremble. ‘This was what I was running away from.’ He whispered, ‘how is it fair I ended up being here in the end?’

Hankyung took so long to respond Heechul had thought he’d fallen asleep, but eventually his tongue smoothed over his cracked, dry lips and he spoke. ‘How is it fair I have to grow old while you stay young and beautiful? You haven’t changed at all.’

‘I wish I could grow old, that I could die. Instead I have to watch you die, and after that I have to keep living.’ He laughed without humour. ‘Isn’t that worse?’

Hankyung didn’t answer his question; in fact he didn’t say a word for a long time. The leaves rustled as a soft wind blew through the window, the curtains fluttering and reminding Heechul that it was all real, that he wasn’t dreaming. And finally Hankyung spoke, and it seemed as if the world fell silent again with every softly uttered word. ‘Don’t let go of my hand this time.’ He said, ‘If you leave me again I don’t know how much longer I could wait.’

And Heechul nodded against the flat pillow, though Hankyung couldn’t see. ‘I won’t.’ he promised. ‘This time I definitely won’t.’

This time he’d be here when Hankyung woke up, even if that meant he’d wait forever.

As Hankyung’s breaths became shallow and far apart, Heechul felt his throat begin to tighten, his vision begin to blur, and he started to sob, to tremble. His chest was a roaring cage of agony as he drew short, sharp breaths in to his swollen lungs, unused for so long. He squeezed Hankyung’s hand tightly, his nails digging sharply into his old flesh and his body writhing painfully beneath the sheets. He felt a squeezing, prickling agony erupt in his dead, dry heart and a roaring thrum in his ears as it filled with blood, as it thumped and thudded shaking and tremulous as it spread fire through his veins. His body spasmed violently, his mouth wide in a silent scream as his legs thrashed and tangled in the sheets. In his blinding, excruciating pain he kicked the bedstand, the candle toppling over and rolling slowly, silently before dropping to the floor, its flame licking at the auburn leaves that coated the floor and in seconds it engulfed them, a carpet of fire surrounding the bed the two men lay upon. Heechul didn’t notice the flames as they surrounded him, the heat biting his flesh as the bedsheets burned. But as he shook and gasped and cried the smoke tickled his lungs, filled them, and he choked, his eyes watering and his heart racing. He loosened his grip on Hankyung’s hand instinctively in his fight for oxygen, but before he could bring his hands to clutch at his throat, to tear at his skin, Hankyung caught him, trapped him.

His old face was calm, placid, as if the flames weren’t crawling up towards him, as if everything was fine. And it calmed Heechul, his pain and terror fading, and he lay back down, pulled the burning sheets back over their bodies, and he stared into the eyes he loved so much. He brought a shaking hand to Hankyung’s face, to touch his cheek, and gasped at what he saw. Was this his hand? This thin skinned, veiny thing, a mere collection of bones wrapped tightly in pale skin? He felt his own face, felt his cheeks all hollow and the wrinkles around his mouth and eyes, felt the thinness of his hair. He pulled on a strand, brought it before his eyes. His hair was white as snow, the fire an orange glow in the blurred background of his teary vision.

Hankyung was still staring at him, his soft smile still on his lips, and even as his body was consumed by the flames Heechul didn’t feel a thing, only the ebbing warmth of Hankyung’s hand wrapped around his own.

And when he blinked, the world was gone, the flames wrapping around them and burning them away until all that remained were charred bones and melted metal, four scorched walls hiding them from the rest of the world. Just two skeletons, their boney fingers entwined, forgotten by a world that never knew them.


End file.
